Today is my husband's and my twenty-ninth wedding anniversary. When I agreed to marry my husband I had every intention of staying true to all of my wedding vows, I was nothing if not earnest in my intentions. I'm not sure if it was the naivety of youth that made me think that I would be able to see all the way to the end of Time, or just what, but as I look back there are times when I feel like these past years have gone in the blink of an eye. Then again there are times when it seems as if the present is never ending.

So, how did I spend today? Well, it was with my husband, but instead of spending time doing something really enjoyable I spent most of the day stripping wallpaper from the kitchen walls in his new home. It was kind of bittersweet, if you can think of it that way. I want to make sure that he's comfortable when he settles in, because as I've said before - I don't hate him. So, our current project is to make his home ready for his imminent arrival.

For two people who have decided to go their separate ways this is pretty weird; my soon-to-be-ex has been deferring to me on all decisions having to do with the interior redecorating of his home. I guess it's because I certainly know what he likes and dislikes, but I also have the feeling that he is a bit overwhelmed with the decisions he is making. Starting out on a new life is usually not terribly easy, my handling of the redecorating is just one less thing he has to really worry about. So, I don't mind.

I really don't want to make any sort of blanket statements about our time together. There are really just too many things that go into spending twenty nine years with someone to be able to lump them all into one or two sentences. But I will say that our life together honestly has never been terribly dull. I think I can also say that we used to make a pretty good team; whether it was while he was in the Army and I was his 'Army Wife' - a place where teamwork is always appreciated, or while we were working towards the goal of saving money for the down payment on our first home. Those were really great things to work together for, and I think we can be proud of those accomplishments.

I'm not trying to 'wax poetic' about our life together, and I'm not looking back fondly. What I am trying to do is to reassure myself that we certainly did start out very much in love and looked forward to what our future was going to be. I think that the one thing that we didn't count on is how the very life together that we were eager to begin would also be the thing that really made us very unhappy, too. So unhappy that it has colored the last ten years very badly.

For that I'm very sad, and very sorry. But, I am still very proud of the twenty nine years that we did manage to eke out. There honestly aren't a lot of couples around today who have that kind of track record, so at least I can take some comfort in the fact that even though I really didn't see the end of Time I did see a whole lot more than most couples ever do.